Month: December 2014

I have come to the conclusion that within this lifetime we or I should say I have had several lives.

When I say that was a past life many people will step back and give me a look like I have stepped off the preverbal edge.
What I mean by past lives is that time in your life when something takes place, some event or the change of circumstances sets your life in a new direction.

There are many things that happen in life to reroute the your direction. The first might be birth, imagine, here you are all warm and comfortable, then wham you are flung into a strange new world full of light and noise.

Then there are the others times in your life such as, school, leaving home, marriage, birth of a child, death plus many others that can take place in an instant.

I have had many of these “past lives” within the time I have been on this earth.
Most of them I am very grateful for however after a time I have become grateful for the others.

I believe that all of us have had things that change us and grow us into the people we have come to be here in this life.

Life is such a wonderful gift, why do we allow ourselves be controlled by something that bores us or does not fulfill us.

We have choice!

There are these times in our lives when things change us or push us into change. If we just listen to that still small voice and embrace the shift in the direction of our lives knowing that God and our Good is pulling us into our greater yet to be. At the moment it may not seem that it is for our good. Nevertheless if we have faith, the faith of God we will see before we are halfway through the good in it.

I invite you to look back at your life and see where your life has spun you around and set your life in a new direction, look at it and see if it was not for your good.

Learn to listen to your inner light and your surroundings. Be Awake…Be Aware…
For You/We are at choice always!

Love is all there is!

In this season of the celebration of light there is also a time of sadness by the loss of those we love. The “first” of any event after a loss can be devastating. If you are the one who has suffered the loss I ask you to seek comfort from friends and family. If that is not possible, there are many support groups out there, I encourage you to seek one out.

If you know someone that has suffered a loss please reach out to him or her with loving support. They maynot know what they need, one of the things they may need is for someone to justlisten. Listen with an open heart without judgment or criticism. By listening you allow them to open up and release what is on their heart so that morehealing can take place.

Most spiritual centers, churches and hospitals offer some type of grief support. I urge you to use them and permit them to help you through this time.

What do you want in your life?

The first thing that you need to do is recognize what it is you want to do with your life. The thing is, many times we know what we don’t want to do, but narrowing it down to what we really want to do with our lives can be a bit of a challenge. We have this secret desire deep within us, something that would make our hearts sing, lift us up to a great consciousness and give that great feeling of fulfillment, but we come up with these excuses like I can’t do that, I don’t have this, I don’t have that, I’m too old and on and on!

I know this because I experience these thoughts and feelings now and then. While building my/our ministry I want to add some more income to our lives. In a discussion yesterday, with a person I highly respect, the question came up…”What do you want to do?” At this juncture in my life when looking for employment I decided that I want to do something that I will enjoy, that will feed those I am working with and be a positive force in the universe. I don’t want to settle just for the money, I want a fulfilling experience.

Now is the time I take charge of the direction in my life. Here is where I relax into the Faith of God. Being still and listening to the still small voice within…the answer is there, the answers are always within me/us. We/I just need to brush away all the cobwebs that cloud our/my vision; we/I need to become crystal clear on what we/I want to do with our/my lives.

I invite you to become clear on what it is you want to do with your life. Don’t settle for something that does not feed you or make your heart sing. Life is too short to settle! What we do should be rich, fulfilling and feed All concerned. This world would be a much happier, healthier place for everyone if everyone was doing what they enjoy.

Release all the buts, what ifs and the I cants!
FIND WHAT YOU LOVE TO DO AND DO IT…

than I was!). Usually I arranged to be out of the office so I could avoid

birthday hoopla but I had a project that required me to be there so I

was stuck! Lastly, for some reason, I was feeling like no one truly cared

about me because no one had called to invite me out to birthday dinner

nor sent a card.

Birthday morning, I arrived at the office early hoping to get some work done before the big “celebration”. When I walked into my office I saw my desk covered with birthday cards. Someone (the administrative assistant, I am sure) had taken the time to remove the cards from their envelopes and stand them up on my desk. I was so surprised and happy! I had never received so many birthday cards, ever! I thought, “Oh these must be from the people I have done favors for or who may have received a card from me at some point.” I wasn’t sure who might have sent them because birthdays were something I occasionally forgot…maybe frequently forgot. I grabbed the cards to see who they were from. To my surprise not one of them was from anyone I had gone out of my way for nor from anyone I had sent a card to in the past. I was puzzled. Why would these folks take the time to send me a birthday card when I could not recall doing them a favor or sending them a card?

The Circle of Giving
It was then that I realized that giving and receiving was not a “tit for tat” experience. I finally got it that the picture was much broader, wider and deeper. I realized it is a mistake to expect what I give to come back to me directly from the folks or places I gave to. I finally understood that giving was a circle rather than a straight line. I give to you, you give to someone else and the Universe gives it all back to us. This process works for both the good stuff and the not so good.

Jewels in our Crowns
This epiphany has stayed with me. My grandmother used to tell me, whenever I found myself pouting about not getting recognition for something “Well dear, that is a jewel in your crown in heaven.” That saying used to annoy and confuse me as a child but as an adult I now understand what she was saying.

I think of the Circle of Giving and remind myself that whatever I put “out there” comes back to me, pressed down and flowing over. All I need do is look at what is coming into my life and to be thankful for it. In fact, we can even be thankful for the situations that aren’t to our liking. Many a time I have changed my ways because I didn’t like something in my life and have received something much better instead. I have observed this with other people as well. So, trusting that it is all good, regardless of appearances, opens us up to experiencing more good. And so it is.

Chaos and the Dark Happenings in this world sometimes lead us to question whether there is truly good all around us. The above quote from Emerson’s “Self Reliance” essay has a phrase that strikes me every time I read it: “…obeying the Almighty effort and advancing on Chaos and the Dark”. As we fight the “chaos and the dark”, setting a vision and intention to stand for truth, or good, or love or other higher ways of being in world where the “dark” sometimes shakes us to our core may be our best defense. As Emerson says, we are “not minors and invalids in a protected corner…but guides, redeemers and benefactors”.

What Can One Person Do? Someone recently said to me “I am only one person, what can I do”. He was asking the right question but not in the right frame of mind. His question meant he felt there was nothing he could do. Had he actually asked the question, “What CAN I do?” perhaps the answer would have come to him or been found for him. One person can make a difference. Historically one person has made a difference in all sorts of situations, times, and places. One person can make a difference in a family. One person deciding to say: “I love you”, in a family that never said that to each other could (and has) changed the entire dynamic of the family. I am sure, Dear Reader, that you have witnessed one person making a difference.

What Can I Do? By just living our lives with some higher intention, we can make a difference. Others may follow our example. We are not always able to change the past nor fix all of the ills and issues we see in the world. But we are able to do better within our own sphere of influence. We can be kinder, love more deeply, speak more honestly and walk more tenderly in the world. This may be enough to make a difference for both ourselves, and others. We can set an intention not to succumb to the “Chaos and the Dark” and instead be a beacon of light.

“If You’re Going Through Hell keep on going…”

There is a country western song by Rodney Atkins called “If you’re going through hell…keep on going!…’cause you may get out before the devil even knows you’re there” (O.K. I admit, I listen to country western music now and then). It sums up my thoughts on getting through the dark night of the soul. Don’t take up residence there! Don’t buy a washer and dryer, new rug, bedroom suite and make yourself comfortable! Yet, if we just try to bypass the pain, that won’t work either. Indications that we have repressed pain or fear, are when we find ourselves overreacting to something; getting far more angry or hurt than a situation calls for or crying at the drop of a hat. (I used to cry every time I saw an old lady in high top tennis shoes…what I didn’t realize is that I was crying because I was afraid that might one day be me!) That usually means we are actually reliving something that occurred in our lives in the past and we didn’t deal with it. So that reaction tells us there is work to be done.

Ask the Boogey Man what It wants

I used to have a recurring nightmare about a big scary monster trying to break down the door from the basement so it could get me! I would struggle in the dream to keep that door closed but the monster would always get it open and start reaching for me to drag me down the basement stairs into its lair! It was horrible. I mentioned this dream to a friend of mine who was a psychotherapist. He told me to “ask the boogey man what it wants”. I looked at him like he was crazy! “Oh yeah,” I said, “I am going to remember, in the middle of a nightmare, to ask the boogey man what he wants…sure”. But…the next time I had that nightmare I DID remember to ask the boogey man what he wanted and when I did, the monster shrank into a little blob and rolled back down the basement stairs and I have never had that nightmare again.

What’s the message?

One way to neutralize the monster of pain is to find out what it is trying to tell us. To do that, we do have to face it just like I did with the nightmare boogey man. We can use our reaction or pain to look within ourselves and see what pain button is still operating that we had forgotten or suppressed. Once we know this we can disconnect it. It is important when searching out the pain to be gentle with ourselves. Usually this pain or fear originated long ago, probably when we were children and probably nobody helped us through it (because if they had, we wouldn’t still be holding it within us). So being gentle as we examine the painful experience and being gentle as we tell ourselves “It’s all right to feel upset or scared about that original issue or incident” and then reminding ourselves that things are different now and we are more able to defend and protect ourselves can help heal that place within us that was still vulnerable..

Strength and Purpose

Once we figure out where the pain stems from, we can heal it by being purposeful in our thoughts and actions going forward. We can tell that small child inside that we are there to protect it and it need not worry anymore. Most importantly, we set an intention to keep it/ourselves safe to consistently do the highest and best for ourselves and all concerned. And, most importantly, we remember we are not alone. We all are surrounded by more people who love us than we acknowledge to ourselves. We also have a Divine Being that has our backs and Who is a Trump Card over all that occurs in our lives…and so it is.

Long Time Happening…

Things change. What was no longer is…yet we might cling to it as though somehow that clinging will bring it back into our reality. I have found myself clinging to situations and even people from my past when, in effect they are “off the table’! That wonderful young man who walked across the dance floor and asked me, of all people, to dance is long gone. The memory of that moment still lingers in my mind and sometimes I have wondered whatever happened to him. That incident occurred over thirty years ago. Perhaps I should move on?

It Was Better Then

I have lived in three states and six cities. Each time I moved, the last place I lived seemed better than the city I just moved to even though I was truly glad to be leaving some of those places. Sometimes we find ourselves looking back on something and it has “grown wings” as my mother says. It has become something far better and dearer than it was when we were smack dab in the middle of it! That relationship we couldn’t wait to get out of or that job we were dying to leave now seems to be the best thing we ever had (well, maybe not the best but better than what we have now) and we mourn it for days…weeks…years! Of course while we do that, mourn what is lost to us, we are energetically keeping new and possibly better experiences from coming to us.

Don’t Block Your Blessings

Often, we stand in the way of our Good. It is right in front of us but we are looking to the right, the left or behind ourselves. We have an indelible picture of what our “Good” should look like and that stops us from seeing the Good that is all around us. As we pursue that picture or worse yet hang onto something that is “off the table”, gone, no longer in our lives, we are blocking our blessings.

Somersaults

The Universe is turning somersaults to bring us the Good we seek. The “Force” IS with us (for non- Star Wars fans, the Force is the Universal power in and around everything). Opening the door to our blessings is as simple as assuming they are there, regardless of what we are seeing and looking for the blessing within the situation. Sometimes this blessing isn’t obvious. Sometimes it is beyond our understanding. But all of the time, it is there and we may just have to trust that. So, knowing your are blessed and a blessing…and so it is.